SegaSonic the Hedgehog (also known by various other names including Sonic Arcade, Sonic the Arcade and SEGASONIC Arcade) was an isometric platform game officially released into Japanese arcades in June 1993. Versions of the arcade game appeared in limited quantities in arcades in anglophone countries, such as London's Sega World, although the game was not localised and appeared still in Japanese.

The game was Sonic the Hedgehog's first major arcade outing, and featured Sega's mascot alongside two new characters:
Ray the Flying Squirrel and Mighty the Armadillo.
Mighty is one of the oldest characters in the Sonic franchise; he was a prototype for Sonic and thus bears an uncanny resemblance to him. Mighty would later feature in the low-profile Knuckles' Chaotix for the Sega 32X;
Ray has not appeared in any other official games, but appeared in some Archie comics. All three characters have identical controls and abilities.

In the game, Sonic, Ray and Mighty have been kidnapped by the evil Doctor Eggman (Robotnik) and must run for their lives to escape Eggman Island, an island littered with tricks and traps that can be activated with the push of a button.

SegaSonic the Hedgehog was intended to be a game in Sonic Gems Collection, but was left out because the original game was controlled by a trackball. It has, however, been emulated successfully in projects such as MAME.

Contents

Gameplay

The premise of the game is to get to the end of an isometric course without dying. This objective is similar to other Sonic games, yet different in the sense that, instead of a typical platforming game, the game is entirely centered around running as fast as possible on a linear course from a never-ending barrage of threats, including giant boulders, lava flows, rogue gears, falling stalactites, and others. When the player is hit by a dangerous obstacle or hazard, he will lose health from a health bar which can be refilled with various rings found around the arena. Upon completing each level, the game tallies up how many rings were grabbed, and extra points are received if over half of the level's rings were found. The game only has one boss, who appears midway through the game.

The characters were controlled by one action button, allowing the player to perform a jumping spin attack, and a trackball is used to move around. The use of the trackball has subsequently led to great difficulty in both official and unofficial emulation efforts; in a recent interview, Yuji Naka stated that the reason it was not included on the recent Sonic Gems Collection was because of this[1]. Each of the trackballs and their corresponding action buttons were color-coded (blue for Sonic, red for Mighty and yellow for Ray).

This game is notable for being the first to feature voices and dialogue for the characters. It was also the first Sonic game to feature an ice level which would later become a recurring theme in the series starting with Sonic 3's Ice Cap Zone.

Between stages, brief cutscenes show Dr. Eggman panicking and plotting the player's demise as he tracks the latter's progress on a map of Eggman Island. Unused tiles found in the game show an unfinished version of "SatAM Robotnik" from the Sonic the Hedgehog TV series[2]. It is unknown what these tiles would be used for, though it is likely that it would have replaced the game's Eggman had the game been localized for the North American market.